Mary J. - The Wilders

As he opened one of the double doors and emerged into the frigid night air, he was in time to hear a woman exclaim, “Oh damn,” and then see Bethany Holloway suddenly disappear from view as she slid down the icy stairs.

Working triage in the E.R. had honed Peter’s reflexes. Instinct just took over.

Holding on to the banister, he sailed down the steps and grabbed Bethany’s arm just before her body came in ungraceful contact with the icy ground.

With her feet sliding in one direction and her body being jerked in another, Bethany overcompensated. In an effort to regain her balance, she threw her weight forward.

The next second, instead of keeping her steady, Peter found himself going down. He landed flat on his back. Since he was still holding on to her arm, he wound up pulling her down as well.

Right on top of him.

The air knocked out of her, she stared down at his face, stunned. He thought she’d indignantly scramble to her feet—or try to. Instead, she started to laugh. Her laugh, low, melodic and sensual, was highly infectious, not to mention that he could actually feel her laughing.

Picturing how absurd this had to look to anyone passing by—mercifully, there was no one—Peter started laughing, too. He laughed so hard, he became practically helpless and moisture began forming in the corners of his eyes.

Moving with the rhythm of laughter, their bodies rubbed lightly against each other.

Slowly, the laughter died away.

Caught between amusement and concern, Bethany struggled to regulate her breathing. “I don’t think that this is what you had in mind.”

Looking up at her, Peter found himself fighting an urge that hadn’t come over him in a very long time. So long that he could barely remember the last time. The pace he’d kept up these past ten years had left very little time for him to even attempt to nurture a private life. Even if that was partly by choice.

Right at this moment, with her breath drifting down along his face and their bodies pressed together, he was acutely aware of what had been missing from his life. What was missing.

So aware that he wasn’t conscious of anything but the tightening of his groin, the long, warm tongues of desire traveling through his body, heating it.

Making him yearn.

The look in her eyes told him he wasn’t alone here. For whatever reasons, Bethany was experiencing the very same thing. The same attraction, the same electricity.

He wasn’t a reckless man by nature. Acting on impulse was something other men did, not him.

Until now.

In one unguarded moment, Peter reached up and framed her face with his gloved hands. He brought her face down to his.

If having her body on top of his had set off a series of sharp, demanding electric shocks, kissing Bethany multiplied the sensations tenfold. She tasted of fresh strawberries and spring, both equally far removed from the moment.

He lost himself in the sensation.

For one brief shining second, he wasn’t Dr. Peter Wilder, highly respected internist, keeper of his father’s flame. He was just Peter, a flesh-and-blood man who longed for companionship, for someone to be there for him at the end of the day, for someone with whom he could share his thoughts, his plans. His love.

He remembered other dreams he’d once had.

Her head was spinning so badly Bethany thought maybe she’d hit it when Peter had accidentally pulled her down. But she’d landed on top of him and, though his body felt solid and hard, she knew for a fact that her head hadn’t made contact with him.

Her pulse accelerating, she could almost feel her blood, exhilarated, surging through her veins.

Bethany deepened the kiss.

The second their bodies had come in contact, it’d felt as if something had just come undone within her.

But if she didn’t draw back, if she let him continue even for another moment, Bethany was sincerely afraid of what that might do to her resolve, to the walls she’d been building up around herself for longer then she could remember. She only knew that they had been forged to keep the hurt back. If she let no one in, then she would never be hurt, it was as simple as that. She’d be invulnerable, the way she wanted to be.

She wasn’t invulnerable now, she realized. She was shaking. Inside and out. Any second now, it was going to occur to him that the cold weather had nothing to do with her reaction.

Her mind scattered in all directions, searching for something plausible to say in order to throw his attention off.

“So.” The single word swooped out of her mouth on a breath that was all but spent the moment she drew her head back. And then she smiled down at him. “About that takeover.”

She felt the laughter rumble in his chest before it burst from his lips. The up-and-down movement was soothing and erotic at the same time. So he did have a sense of humor, she thought, relieved. Thank God for small favors.

“One takeover is about all I can handle right now,” he told her amicably. It was obvious that he wasn’t talking about NHC—he was referring to what had just happened between them.

Confusion, enhanced by nerves, echoed in her head. The only thing she was certain of was that she wanted to kiss him again. She was even more certain that she shouldn’t.

Placing his hands on her arms, Peter gently moved her back so he could sit up. When he did, he drew in a long, deep breath, then exhaled. Slanting a look at her, he apologized. It seemed like the thing to do.

“I’m sorry about that.”

“Are you?” Was he sorry that he’d kissed her? The second she thought that, she felt this odd pin-pricking sensation around her heart. What was that? Rather than deliberate over it, she struggled to block it.

Peter’s eyes held hers. “The fall,” he clarified.

Her breath had stopped in her throat and she had to force it back out again, had to consciously make herself breathe.

“And the kiss?” she asked softly.

Peter slowly moved his head from side to side. “I’m not sorry about that.”

She looked at him for a long moment. He wasn’t lying, she realized. An unexpected wave of happiness suddenly drenched her.

“I’m not, either,” she confided. And then she smiled at him, really smiled. “Finally, something we can agree on.” Was it her imagination, or had his smile just deepened?

“I have something else we can agree on,” Peter told her.

A leeriness slipped in again. She reminded herself that this was the man who opposed her ideas, whom she had to win over. She knew he was no pushover.

“Oh?”

He nodded. “That we should get up before someone comes by and sees us.”

A wave of regret came and went. She couldn’t begin to understand it. “Right.”

Bethany was about to spring to her feet, but he was faster. Standing up, Peter extended his hand to her. She looked at it, then raised her eyes to his face.

“Isn’t this what got us in trouble in the first place?” she reminded him.

He continued holding his hand out. “Lightning rarely strikes in the same place twice.”

She had a wealth of extraneous knowledge in her head, retaining everything she’d ever read, even in passing. “That’s a fallacy, you know. Lightning’s been known to strike twice in the same place. Sometimes even three times.”

“I said ‘rarely,’” Peter pointed out, trying to keep a straight face, “not ‘never.’”

“Good enough.” Wrapping her long, slender fingers around his hand, Bethany held on tightly as she rose unsteadily to her feet. Once up, she took a step and felt her feet begin to slide dangerously beneath her. Instantly her hand tightened on his. She wasn’t pleased about coming off like some damsel in need of rescuing. “This is what I get for not wearing my boots,” she murmured under her breath.